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The Hurt Locker (2008) [REVIEW]

This film marked the second year in a row that a movie won best picture at the Oscars and I had no fucking clue what it was. The previous year being Slumdog Millionaire, and then this movie, that has something to do with lockers, I thought. Turns out it has nothing to do with lockers. I was working in a theater at the time this movie came out, and I remember other employees recommending it to me, but I was too lazy to see it. It got to a point where it was showing in the same theater as some bullshit movie called “Camp Rock”, and they were alternating showtimes. Camp Rock and The Hurt Locker are very different, one being about the people who defuse bombs in Iraq, and the other being Camp fucking Rock. Let’s just say that I was a little embarrassed when I got a call on the radio asking me to check on the movie, which was supposed to be The Hurt Locker, and I saw Lisa Kudrow’s face on the screen. Yeah, that’s right, Lisa Kudrow was in Camp Rock. Anyways, it took me two years to see this movie, and not a moment too soon!

Shoot those fuckers in the head! USA! USA!

We see in the first ten minutes just how stressful it is being a bomb diffuser in the Iraq War, especially if you are a character being portrayed by Guy Pearce, because it means you will blow up and die. Guy Pearce is replaced by Jeremy Renner, who is going to play Hawkeye in the Avengers movie, so I will only refer to him as that. We meet Hawkeye as he’s listening to some “heavy metal” music and being all intense and shit. On his first mission, he acts like an asshole and throws a smoke bomb and disconnects his radio so that everyone thinks he is awesome. Well, he’s not, he’s just kind of a dick. He gets the job done, of course, but not without alienating the other people on his squad. The rest of his squad discovers that clearly Hawkeye isn’t necessarily in it for the good that he’s doing, as much as he is in it for the adrenaline rush, which clearly means he’s got some mental issues going on. From disconnecting his headset, to not wearing any bomb protection, to leading his squad on rogue missions and accidentally shooting someone in his squad, Hawkeye is spiraling out of control. We then see him back at home, because his tour of duty was over. After a few quick scenes showing his obvious discomfort with his life at home, we then see him being redeployed for another year of service.

And BOOM goes the dynamite!

This won the fucking Oscar? Are you kidding me? I’m not trying to say that fucking Avatar should have won, because it shouldn’t, but the fact that this bullshit movie did win felt like such a pussy, political move. Let me first acknowledge that the people who are superfans of this movie will try to call me out by saying, “You just didn’t get it, man”, and then I’ll call all of you douches. This was basically a modern-day Rambo, in the sense that the U.S. government and military forces took all these people, whether it be the Iraq or Vietnam war, trained them to be ruthless killers, and clearly caused psychological damage that resulted in these people never being the same again. The difference between the two is that Rambo was a dick who was causing all of this carnage, only to make the point of psychological damage at the end of the movie. The Hurt Locker was clearly showing the mental instability of all of the soldiers involved in the war, yet at the end, we get to see Hawkeye walking back into battle while heavy metal music was playing, showing how “cool” or “bad ass” this guy was, completely taking the wind out of this movie’s sails. I enjoyed it for the most part, right up until the end, which was when they lost me. It seems like the plot description of this movie was “War is bad, heavy metal is good, bomb blower upper guys, slow motion walking, guns, desert, blood, AWESOME!” The performances were good, and it gives me hope when I will get to see Hawkeye playing Hawkeye, but I really just think this was pretentious bullshit, considering everybody knows that war is bad and you don’t need heavy metal to prove it.